Sick and Twisted
by FanGirl0207
Summary: Steven knew that Lance was insane, but he didn't know to what extent. Neochampionshipping. Lance x Steven. Rated T for mild insanity.


**Sick and Twisted**

Steven knew that Lance was insane, but he didn't know to what extent.

 **A/N: Hey, it's been a while since I last uploaded something here. For those of you wondering, I haven't completely abadoned my other fic. I intend to complete it, as soon as I get the motivation. Anyway, enjoy this fic!**

* * *

 _"If you hurt him, I will_ _ **burn**_ _you."_

 _Lance said those words with a threatening look on his face, his eyes directly boring into the Team Magma Elite grunt who was towering before me. His gaze was resolved, and the way he said the word 'burn' sent chill running down everyone's spines. I felt the fear immediately setting in the room._

 _"Heh," the Elite grunt smirked, but there was fear written on his face. It was illogical to be intimidated by Lance at that moment though, since Team Magma had us outnumbered and overpowered._

 _It was supposed to be a simple raid mission, it wasn't supposed to go wrong, but somehow it did, and now we were all in trouble. From the corner of my eyes, I could see Wallace and Cynthia, beaten up and barely conscious. They were badly injured. I could see blood on their clothes, and blood pooling on the floor. Cynthia got a bullet through her shoulder, but it wasn't anything fatal, she would live if we could get out of here immediately. Wallace was better off, he didn't get shot, but his ankle was sprained pretty badly._

 _The Elite grunt then laughed out loud, as if suddenly gaining the confidence he was lacking just moments ago. He then turned his maddened gaze at Lance and asked, "Oh, really?" he then laughed again, "Well, we'll see about that later, if you can get out of this alive!"_

 _The next thing I knew, I was drowning in unbearable pain._

* * *

A sharp smell assaulted my nostrils, a frightened cry and the voice of someone begging slowly pulled me away from the darkness' embrace. As I regained my consciousness, I could hear Wallace's voice, angry and frightened at the same time, calling out for a name I knew too well. I opened my eyes, I felt dizzy and sick, pain was all that I could feel at that moment.

"Lance! Don't do it! You're insane!" Wallace's voice was stricken with so much fear.

Wallace never sounded this scared, and I was worried. Blinking several times, I noticed that the view before me was blocked by bodies of half-conscious Team magma grunts, all of them helplessly tied up. I quickly concluded that we were somehow saved, but by who? How?

"Lance! Stop that!"

Again, the fear in Wallace's voice chilled me, and I groggily sat up, ignoring the pain, because I knew that something was horribly wrong. I blinked as I looked around, trying to find Lance, trying to figure out what was wrong. My body was screaming in pain, but I needed to know what was going on. The sharp scent assaulted me once again, and only then did I realize, as my gaze landed on Lance, that it was the smell of gasoline. At that moment, the pain drained away from my body as I watched him, standing on the far corner of the room, with the Elite grunt tied up by his feet, pouring gasoline all over the Elite grunt's body.

My heart froze.

 _"If you hurt him, I will_ _ **burn**_ _you."_

Only then did I realize that he meant it. He seriously meant it.

The Elite grunt by his feet was crying and begging, his eyes full of incomprehensible fear. I didn't listen to what he said though, for my attention was solely focused on Lance.

Lance was drenching the Elite grunt with _Arceus-knows-where-he-got-it-from_ gasoline. The expression on his face though, scared me the most. He looked completely at ease, as if there was nothing wrong with what he was doing, as if it wasn't sick or twisted in any sort of sense. He looked so at comfortable with what he was doing, as if this wasn't really the first time he was going to burn a man alive. As soon as he was done drenching the Elite grunt, he searched in his pocket, then pulled out a lighter.

"Lance…" My voice was trembling, weak, but I needed to stop him. So I gathered all my strength, and shouted his name, "Lance!"

He paused, and turned to look at me.

And then he smiled. "Hang on, I'll be there in a sec."

"Don't do it," I said immediately. "Don't…"

The smiled dropped from his face, and he looked genuinely torn, puzzled, as if he didn't understand. "You know me, Steve, I keep my promises and threats."

"You can't burn a man alive!" I yelled at him, disbelief and fear all apparent in my voice. "That's insane!"

Immediately, his eyes grew cold. "Insane?" he repeated that word calmly, darkly. "He asked for it… I told him that I would burn him if he hurts you. And still he did it anyway. He. Asked. For. It." He repeated, stressing each word with that cold, heartless look on his eyes.

"Please, don't…" I begged. I needed to stop him. "Please. For me."

A look of realization suddenly came over his face. "Of course, I'm sorry, what was I thinking?" He sighed as he shook his head and walked over towards me.

Relief immediately flooded me, he was listening to me.

But something still felt off. It wasn't over, I could tell.

When Lance picked me up and carried me outside, I knew with rising dread what he was thinking.

"Don't," I said as he carried me away from that room. "Please, don't do it."

Lance looked down at me, and said, "But I have to. Otherwise, nobody's ever going to take me seriously, right?"

No one messed with Lance and live to tell the tale, I've heard others said it over and over again ever since I first met him. I thought those people were just exaggerating. I thought people were just spreading rumors, telling tales to make him look like the bad-boy he really wasn't. I thought they were just looking out for me.

At that moment, I realized how damned wrong I was.

He was truly insane.

He set me down on the floor after we were quiet far away from that room. He pulled out a pokeball and set out his Dragonite. "Look out for him for a moment," he told his dragon Pokémon. "I have some unfinished business." Dragonite nodded. Lance turned to me and said, "I'll be back soon."

I watched as he walked away, dread filling my heart. The words others had told me echoed numbly in my head.

 _Don't get close to him._

 _I'm telling you, he's not normal._

 _A hound of the government._

 _He's a psychopath._

They were right. They were right all along.

"Lance…" I called out to him, and he stopped. He gazed at me inquiringly, but didn't say a word, patiently waiting as I gather my thoughts. I needed to stop him, but how?

 _I keep my promises and threats._

 _You can't stop him. Nobody can._

"If you do it…" I finally managed to gather the words. I looked at him in the eyes, "Then don't you ever **_dare_** show your face in front of me again."

It was a desperate threat, I knew, but just as he meant his threats, I meant mine as well. If he really did it, if he was as sick and twisted as this, then I wouldn't want to see him again.

Lance looked surprised, "What?"

At that moment, I was somewhat relief. Despite his madness, his feelings for me were still genuine.

"You heard me." I told him, calmer this time.

Lance looked torn, but he didn't say anything. He groan, shook his head, and walked away, back towards that room.

As I watched his back, I realized that I would never see him again.

* * *

I didn't know how long I was out, but when I woke up, I found myself in a hospital room. When I opened my eyes, I saw Wallace sitting on the sofa in that room.

He smiled nervously and then said, "You're awake."

Wallace was patched up and wearing the hospital gown. I noticed the crutch by his side, and the cast shielding his ankle. We were saved, somehow.

"How are you feeling?" Wallace asked.

"Not bad," I told him. Everything felt rather numb, I was probably still under the effect of some sort of drug. I looked around the room, trying to find some other faces, hoping that maybe, just maybe, Lance hadn't done it. But no one else was there.

He really went and did it.

"Lance went out with the police a while ago; they were getting statements from him." Wallace explained.

Quickly, I turned to look at him. Wait, did that mean… "Did he…?"

Wallace looked troubled for a moment.

"Tell me," I urged him, a bit desperately.

Wallace sighed, "When he came back, he was…" Wallace hesitated. "He didn't do it."

Immediately, relief flooded me. I was so happy I thought I could cry. Arceus, even though he was so messed up, he still listened to me.

"He paced about as soon as he came back," Wallace continued. "As if he wasn't sure…"

* * *

 _Wallace watch with apprehension as Lance paced back and forth before the Elite grunt now drenched in gasoline. He was muttering to himself, his pace frantic, and the look on his face troubled. The Elite grunt was still begging, but Lance wasn't listening to him._

 _"Please, please, please…" the Elite grunt begged so pitifully._

 _"Shut up!" Lance suddenly stopped and yelled at him. And just like that, the whole room went silent. Lance resumed to pacing back and forth, looking like an agitated wild Pokémon._

 _Wallace was scared, because he knew that Lance was at the brink of his sanity. One wrong trigger, and off he would went. The others seemed to know this as well, for they were silent, barely breathing._

 _"Damn him!" Lance suddenly shouted as he punched the metallic wall, a sick cracking noise ensued._

 _Wallace felt his heart leapt up to his throat, but he then realized that it was Steven who had done this to Lance. Steven had said something to make him hesitate. The knowledge that his best friend had some control over this psychopath comforted him a little._

 _Lance immediately walked over the Elite grunt and squatted before him. He searched through the sobbing man, until he finally found his wallet. He pulled out his ID, and then he said, "You're in luck, I'm not going to burn you today," he hissed at the Elite grunt, voice laced with restrained rage. "But remember, I have your ID, I know you face. I will find you one day. And when that day comes, I will keep my threat. I will burn you." He sounded so mad, that Wallace couldn't help but shudder in fear. "So, unless you want to die painfully, you better_ _ **run.**_ _Run, and don't_ _ **ever**_ _let me catch you, do you hear me?"_

 _The Elite grunt whimpered and nodded, sobbing out his gratitude._

 _With a disgusted grunt, Lance stood up and walked out of that room._

* * *

The room fell silent after Wallace finished his story, and I closed my eyes as I tried to digest that information. He really did it, he really listened to me.

"That's good," I finally said, "That's… Really good."

Wallace looked at me and asked, "What did you tell him?"

"I told him not to show his face in front of me again if he really did it."

Wallace looked down on the floor, "I see."

I looked at Wallace, somehow knowing what he was about to say. He was my best friend after all; of course he would be worried.

"Steven, I-"

"Don't," I cut him off. "Don't say anything, Wallace. Don't say anything about him."

"He's a psychopath!" Wallace hissed.

"He's not," I argued, "he doesn't go out killing other people for no reason, does he?"

"He was about to **_burn_ ** that man. Steven. _**Alive!**_ "

"Just as he said, he keeps his promises and threats."

"Why are you protecting him? You know that kind of behavior is not normal! He's insane!"

Yes, Lance was insane, and I had to learn about it the hard way. But he had listened to me. He had taken my words seriously. He had not burn that man. "He's usually normal, and you know that. He was provoked."

"He is _insane!_ "

"He is **_not_** insane," I returned with a glare at my best friend. "Just a little extreme…"

Wallace fell silent. Then, he shook his head in disbelief as he stood up. "You and him… You both are the same. No wonder you get along so well." And with that snarky comment, he limped out of the room.

* * *

Lance came around approximately two hours after Wallace left. As soon as he saw me, he smiled. He looked so gentle and normal at that moment, as if the side of him that I had seen that day was all but a nightmare. A figment of my twisted imagination.

"That looks painful," I said as I looked at his hand. He broke some bones, even I could tell that.

"Nothing I couldn't handle," he said as he sat down on the stool next to my bed. "How are you feeling?"

"Not bad. The drugs are wearing off though," I told him.

"Do you want me to get the nurse?"

"No, if you can handle that, then I can handle this much," I said as I glanced at his broken hand. "It's really bad, isn't it?"

"It'll heal," he shrugged nonchalantly, "You don't have to worry about me so much."

"I constantly worry about you," I admitted. "You're so stupidly stubborn after all."

Lance looked down, "I'm sorry."

What he was truly apologizing for, I couldn't tell. But a small part of me was certain he wasn't apologizing for what he was about to do the other day.

Silence fell over us, and I closed my eyes, refusing to say anything else to him. I didn't know what I want to say anymore to him. I was still trying to come to terms with the fact that everything that they told me about him was actually true. That there really was something wrong with him.

"I understand, if you think that I'm crazy," as if reading my mind, Lance suddenly spoke. He kept his gaze fixed at his hand as he continued, "But… I have no other choice. I keep my promises and threats. When I threatened him, I thought he was going to take me seriously, but… He didn't. You got hurt, and I got so mad that I…" his voice trailed off. "I have to do it." He sounded so firm in his belief, "I have to..."

I understood him, frighteningly. It felt so natural to understand him, to nod my head and forgive him ust like that.

It frustrated me how much I love him.

"Shut up, my head hurts." I told him as I closed my eyes.

"Sorry," Lance said, before he fell silent.

I tried to sort out my thoughts in the silence, trying to come to terms with the fact that everything that they told me about him is true. It wasn't that hard though. Perhaps a small part of me had known all along, had come to accept it too. Wallace was right too, about me. I must be insane as well, for loving a man like him.

"Hey, Lance…?" I finally broke the silence.

"Yes?"

"Back then… Why did you listen to me? Why didn't you burn him?"

Lance looked confused, "Do you want me to?"

"No," I immediately said. "Just wondering."

Lance looked at me, a strange look on his face, "Well, isn't it kind of obvious?"

I smiled, knowing what the answer was.

"I don't want to lose you. You mean too much to me."

That was all that I needed to hear.


End file.
